The invention relates to nailing devices of a type common used by roofers. More particularly, the invention relates to nailing devices, that employ metal alloy nail belts.
Nail belts are used in nailing devices that are operated with compressed air, gas, electricity or manually. Typically, a nail belt will be placed in a nail magazine containing up to 140 parallel oriented nails that are linked with a wire that is welded to the nail shafts. The malleability of the wire permits coiling of the nail band for insertion in a suitable nailing device. Typical nail belts employ connecting wires consisting of soft unalloyed metals.
A known nailing device is described in European Patent No. 321 440 81. Operating nail belts in such a nailing device is difficult because the driving motion of the nailing device compresses the spacing between nails. Furthermore, the nails are undesirably repositioned towards the magazine center. In practice malfunctions may occur in the nailing device repeatedly since, as noted, the nails jam inside the nailing device when they are turned. In addition, the nails are shortened and repositioned by the hammer component of the nailing device. In particular, this malfunction occurs when a large part of the nail band has been used and the remainder of the nail coil lies loose in the nail magazine.
Nail driving requires strong forces. However these forces often have negative affects on nailing device bearings. Therefore, wear and tear quickly appears and results in considerable give on the bearings as well as inexact guidance and nail feed. Accordingly, there is a need for a nailing device that overcomes the foregoing problems.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a nailing device that smoothly delivers nails without significant nail jam.
It is another object of the invention to provide a nailing device that aligns nails for delivery with a high degree of precision.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an improved nail belt that resists nail jam.
It is yet another object of the invention to overcome the problems associated with prior art nailing devices.
In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, a nailing device is provided for use with nails on a belt. The nailing device generally includes an upper part that may resemble a hammer handle. The upper part preferably includes a miter gage and an arm component which contains a nail magazine. A nail feeder is provided in communication with the nail magazine having a hammerhead disposed near an end thereof. The hammerhead may include a drive hole in which a striker is located next to a bearing bolt in the miter gage. A rocker arm preferably engages the nail feeder such that, during operation of the nailing device, the nail feeder feeds nails to the drive hole of the hammerhead.